She Didn't Believe It
by RhiannonNymph
Summary: Jo only found out because she'd heard other hunters talking. But Dean couldn't be dead. Post-NRFTW.


**DISCLAIMER: **I own nothing, Kripke is king and all that jazz.

A/N: I apologize in advance to Jo fans. I don't have a real great handle on her - mostly because I didn't like the way the character was written (which was a shame because I like Alona Tal) and this is the first I've ever used her. So if anyone has any points of how to make her more…her, I'd like to know!

Or if you think she sounds herself, I'd like to know that too. And also, this takes place....ehhhh....not terribly long after Dean's death in NRFTW. Long enough for news to spread.

Read and enjoy! Thanks!

* * *

**SHE DIDN'T BELIEVE**

She only found out because she'd heard some hunters talking.

They said there had been more demon activity in this one place than they'd seen in a long while. Since the Devil's Gate. Then they said how now things were all quiet on the home front, and it didn't sit well with the rumors they'd been hearing.

She didn't sit down and tell them who she was until she heard the Winchesters mentioned. Dean still owed Jo a phone call.

They said it had hit a couple'a people hard. That the freak brother had taken off, and even Singer couldn't find him. And then he'd stopped trying.

She didn't want to believe the rumors though, besides, Winchesters weren't exactly the Kennedy's; people didn't like them and they certainly didn't play well with others. The cool metal of her father's knife in her hands was proof enough of that.

She wasn't angry with the remaining Winchesters, not even after Sam…or a possessed Sam threatened to kill her. Hell, despite what that damn demon said she still had something of a torch burning for the eldest Winchester.

Had to be because he hadn't come after her like hunters used to back at the Roadhouse. That and the fact that he was unrelentingly gorgeous. He was something she'd seen shades of before, but never experienced. He was different. And there was no way he was dead.

No way he'd been lost to Hell. No way had Sam let that happen.

She was trying not to cry, hunters didn't cry, even when they lost something important. Someone.

She called his cell, fingers tingling, and waited for an answer that didn't come. It was hard to stop the tears when a computer told her the number was disconnected. So hard in fact that she failed. Hot tears made twin paths down her face.

Sam didn't answer his phone either.

_Why hadn't someone told her? What the hell was wrong with everyone?_

Since she still wasn't really on speaking terms with her mother - and since mother couldn't seem to be bothered to let her know Dean was dead, she didn't know when the next time they'd talk would be - she'd had to do a little digging. Ash had been gone over a year and she'd had to do it herself, but she found the number.

Her cell phone was lodged between her ear and shoulder. She was twisting her father's iron knife in her hands, waiting for someone to answer.

They picked up on the third ring.

She was a little surprised.

The phone was answered with a gruff, "What?"

"Bobby Singer?" they said that Bobby Singer had been close to the Winchester family. Father and all. He was suspected to be the last hunter that wanted anything to do with them. Her mother knew him, said he was a good man, a good hunter.

"Yeah? Who's this?" they also said he'd taken to drinking; she could tell that much was true in the slight slurring of his words. She seemed to have caught him early enough though.

"Jo Harvelle." she started carving a line into the table top. Silent tears still burning down her face, pooling under her chin.

"Harvelle…Ellen's kid?"

She nods into the phone, and then adds a soft, "Yeah." silence lingers on the line, and there isn't even any white noise. She wants to ask, but God, the answer scares her. She hasn't even asked the question and she's terrified.

"Well, whaddya want?"

His voice was loud and demanding, it brought a new wave of tears. Her heart was hammering in her chest, "I just…I heard that-that…that Dean…"

"Dean's dead, don't call here again."

The phone clicks and the line goes dead. She can't even move, her hands are frozen over the table - how she's still holding the knife she doesn't know, because her phone clattered to the floor already and she hadn't flinched.

She wanted to scream.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

He put the phone back on the cradle.

He gets a second of sobriety at the mention of Dean, and all he can think is, 'Huh, that's what my voice sounds like these days.'

He was mean to the girl. It wasn't like him, but he didn't care. He didn't want to talk about it.

Dean.

_God, Dean._

Still tore at his heart.


End file.
